


my eyes have always followed you around the room

by madfatty



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 23:11:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4198611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madfatty/pseuds/madfatty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post “can we be friends?” conversation and pre-bust up with Olivia. Parties are supposed to be fun. This one isn’t . This may sting a little. You have been warned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my eyes have always followed you around the room

madfatty  
it wasn't supposed to be like this. I'm supposed to be a grown up. All the MMFD stuff goes here. Other stuff = otherlil  
The night air is cold enough to burn her cheeks; sharp enough to pierce through the extra layer of clothing she always wraps herself in – her fat girl’s armour – normally it’s a hindrance but tonight she’s grateful for it. Although she’d happily stand out here naked if it meant escaping what’s currently passing for music inside the house. That, and watching Finn and his new girlfriend snogging. A little voice inside her head, one of the multitudes, whispers that she’s the one that broke up with him so he could have exactly what he’s having - in front of most of Stamford college in the front room of some random’s house this chilly Friday night - a normal girlfriend. Rae has lost count of the times she’s told this particular voice to fuck off.

They are friends again but it’s been difficult trying to slip back into the way they used to be before he changed him and her into them with the press of his shaky fingers into her back that not-so-long-ago night outside the chippy. He seems to be managing much better than she is if the torrid display going on inside is anything to go by.

It doesn’t help that he’s still so sweet to her. That he still looks softly at her, turns to her first, treats her like she still means something to him. Those soulful eyes still follow her, still seek her out. She almost wants him to stop. It’s no good for either of them to dwell in the past, no matter how much she wants to wallow there. It’s better this way. They are friends again and that is more than she had allowed herself to hope for.

Still, coming out tonight was a bad idea. While she could probably list denial as a super power, even her considerable skills are being stretched to maximum capacity by the show they’re putting on inside. She should really just cut her losses and sneak off home. If she slips out through the side gate now she won’t have to make up yet another bizarre story about why she has to rush off.

As it was, she’d had to endure twenty questions from the ever-watchful gang just to slip out to the backyard; citing homicidal tendencies generated by the current playlist as cause enough to flee. She can still hear the wretched litany of mediocrity that is Now 33, however muffled by the double glazing of the patio doors.

She’s always had a love/hate relationship with the dark but tonight, she pulls her jacket tighter around her and moves from the weak circle of the back porch light into its welcoming arms. She slips behind the back of the potting shed, her eyes cast skyward as she heaves an exaggerated sigh. She’s finalising her escape plan as the patio doors slide heavily open, then slam rapidly shut, allowing only a brief aural assault by Gina G before returning her to the relative quiet. The blissful reprieve is short-lived as the air becomes peppered with the unmistakeable combination of cigarette smoke and CK-One. The accompanying disdainful ‘fuck’s sake’ leaves no room for doubt as to whom she’s sharing the night sky with.

Is it memory or does she actually hear the ignition of his lighter, the deep pull of smoke into his lungs and slow, deliberate exhale of breath? She stands motionless; eyes squeezed shut in a childish conviction that it somehow makes her invisible. She’s hoping that this is just a brief intermission for him; a crafty half-time fag before he rushes back to snogging the new girl’s face off. Okay, so she’ll wait here until he’s gone back in, then she can make a break for it and no one will be any the wiser. She’ll be long gone before anyone notices. But the universe isn’t quite done fucking with her just yet, because the crisp, still air is suddenly filled with his voice cracking on the shape of her name.

She knows it’s ridiculous but she stays silent, hoping he’ll give up or think that he was mistaken, but he says her name again, stronger this time – like he’s made up his mind about something.

“I know you’re there, Rae; I watched you come outside.” She wonders at how that could even be possible considering he was practically having his face eaten off when she’d made her exit.

“Hiya,” she says, wincing at how foolish she sounds and the relative brightness as she emerges from the dark back into the pale pool of light shimmering over the back step where he’s standing. He is kind enough not to make fun of her obvious lunacy; just greets her with that rueful smile of his.

“Just wanted a bit of fresh air…” 

“Just needed a smoke…” they begin together.

“Music is complete shite…” 

“Lizard should not be allowed within twenty feet of a stereo…”

They smile weakly at one another before falling silent. Rae thinks she should say something complimentary about Finn’s new girl, since they’re friends again but she can’t come up with anything more than, “Olivia seems nice.” 

She cannot read the look he gives her. He nods blankly and offers a half-hearted “Yeah. She is.”

“I just needed a smoke…” he says again, indicating the nearly burnt out stub between his thick, yellowing fingers. He flicks the end out into the darkness and moves away from the entrance to the house. 

“Oh. Yeah. Well I’ll let you…” she stutters, heading back towards the door.

“No stay. It’s alright.” He reaches for her before he remembers himself, his hands hovering in the air between them impotently. “Feels like I haven’t seen you for ages. Not proper like. To talk.” He lurches a little and it’s then she notices how drunk he is. She puts her hands up to steady him but doesn’t let herself touch him. They stand there, awkwardly mirroring each other; time dragging on, time standing still. Anyone watching from inside would think they were dancing.

“Busy, busy,“ she shrugs and not knowing what else to say, turns to leave. 

“Rae. Please…” she looks at him then and the sadness in his eyes breaks her heart a little more, makes her ignore the little voice inside her head that says this is so not a good idea.

“Okay.” She knows he’s got something he wants to say, she just has to give him room to start. While she adored the way he’d drag and curl his thoughts across her skin, she took immense pride in the fact that in the short time they’d been together, the famously taciturn Finn Nelson had actually opened up to her.

He pulls his tobacco tin from his pocket and attempts to roll another smoke. The drink or the cold has him fumbling and she takes pity and the tin and rolls it for him. She liberates the lighter from his right hand without managing to touch him and deftly lights the cigarette before passing it back to him, blowing the acrid smoke from the corner of her mouth. He thanks her with a tiny smile. For something to do, she rolls another three in quick succession, just the way he’d taught her, because he doesn’t seem to be in any fit state to do it himself and he looks like he’s going to need them. Finn always smokes more when he’s anxious about something.

They stay quiet for a long time just standing in the brittle air, him smoking, her watching. Tired of the silence, Rae offers up, “It’s cold tonight, yeah?”

“Here, take my jacket,” and he has one arm already out of its sleeve.

“No, you’re alright.” She assures him, taking a step back.

“Come on, Rae. Take it.” 

“No, Finn! I don’t want your bloody jacket!” It’s louder and harsher than she’d intended and he recoils as if she’s slapped him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so rude.” She says softly. It’s exhausting all this politeness. Cautious and careful when all they’ve ever done is run at each other at full speed. “You have to stop being so nice to me.”

“That’s just stupid. Why wouldn’t I be nice to you?” he scowls at her through a thick plume of smoke as he tugs his sleeve back into place.

“Because… you just have to. You can’t keep…” she can’t find a way of saying, ‘you can’t keep treating me like I’m still your girlfriend,’ without crying, so she doesn’t say anything at all.

“I can’t what, Rae?” Suddenly he’s angry. “You can’t tell me what I can and can’t do anymore. You’re not my…” And just as quickly the anger leaves him, like he doesn’t have the energy to sustain it.

There’s a garden bench sitting below the kitchen window, almost outside the reach of the light. He looks up at the doorway and watches the activity inside for a moment. He seems to come to a decision and lowers himself onto the bench. He draws his knees up to rest his feet on the seat, his face shielded by his arms folded across them. The little voice in her head becomes more shrill and insistent. She should go now. She should just turn around and leave right now, before he looks up at her again with that wounded expression on his face.   
She can’t seem to make herself move.

“Rae, we’re friends again, yeah?” he mumbles into his lap.

“ ‘Course,” she breathes.

“And friends help each other, right?”

She doesn’t like where this is going but she doesn’t know how to stop it. Nothing good can come of whatever comes next. The voice in her head is hoarse from screaming.

“Then help me Rae,” he finally looks up at her, and the hurt in his red-rimmed eyes is more than she can bear. “Tell me what I did wrong.”

Her skin begins to prickle, the buzzing begins in her ears and behind her eyes and she lowers her arms so the sleeves of her jacket hide her nails pressing half-moons into the pads of her thumbs. She forces her breathing to slow, counting on a loop in her head. It’s an eternity before she feels it’s safe to speak. When she’s confident that her voice won’t betray her, she licks her lip and lies, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do Rae.” There is a fierce determination in the way he holds her gaze, challenging her to try and deny the truth of it to his face. “Be my friend. I need to know. I keep fucking it up and I don’t know how. Tell me what I did to make you not want me anymore. If I knew, maybe I could fix it”.

How could this wonderful, beautiful boy think that what happened between them was his fault? Where would he get the idea that there was something wrong with him? He’s perfect; she’s the misfit, the fuck-up. Always has been.

“Finn…” she starts, without any idea of what she will say next. She can hardly tell him the truth.

“Please Rae.” He’s drunk, she reminds herself and wishes she was too because then she’d have an excuse for giving in to the desperation in his eyes.  
She believed she was protecting him by ending it and that he’d soon come to see that he was better off without her. Despite her assumptions that he’s been doing fine, the revelation that she may have done significant damage by leaving knocks the wind right out of her and she lowers herself down onto the bench beside him. He shifts slightly, automatically creating a place for her at his side.

“It wasn’t you. You didn’t do anything wrong. It was me Finn. I broke it. It’s what I do. I break everything.” She has to touch him, make him see. Rae gives in to the impulse and reaches for him tentatively.

He almost folds in on himself in an effort to escape her.

“Don’t…” he pleads, and in her head, the other shoe drops. It’s every fear she’s harboured since they began. He flinches and it’s exactly as she had always secretly expected and yet it hurts far worse than she could have prepared for. She is breathless with the pain of it. She can’t blame him though. It’s nothing she doesn’t deserve.

“I can’t… don’t touch me if you’re only going to let me go again. I’m not like you Rae. I’m not strong enough.”

Her hand drops to the seat between them, her fingers burning with need and her face burning with shame. She takes a moment to regain her composure. “I’m so sorry, Finn. I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t know I could.”

He launches himself off the bench, angry and incredulous. “Why, because I’m stupid?” He spits at her.

Her eyes widen at the sudden venom in his tone. “You’re not stupid, Finn…”

“Because I, I’m thick and I wouldn’t understand? He continues, his voice rising in pitch. “Because I don’t have any feelings?” She can only stare at him, mouth gaping. Where is all this coming from?

“I’m used to other people thinking that I’m nothing Rae, but I thought… I thought you were different. I thought you could see me.”

All the fire has gone out of him. He slumps back down onto the bench, small and defeated. It hurts to see him like this.

“You are not stupid and you are most definitely not nothing. You’re amazing Finn. You’re a good, kind, decent person. You’re the best person I know.” 

“Don’t lie to me, Rae.” He mutters with a shake of his head.

“I’m not lying. It’s true. Every word.” She insists, indignant that he doubts her sincerity. This is a truth that she doesn’t mind sharing and he seems to need to hear it.

“How can you say all that to me and still do what you did? I don’t understand.”

“Look,” she begins, almost dismissively, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Like this is something that everyone should get. “I never should have started with you. I know that now, but I was selfish and I just wanted you so much…”

“Then why, Rae? What changed? What did I do?” his frustration is palpable. “Am I just an idiot for thinking you could feel the same way about me? Because I fell for it and it hurts, you know? That you could do that to me, and not even think twice about it. It’s all been so easy for you and I’m just… miserable.”

How could he possibly think that any of this had been easy for her? Though she knew that there was never going to be a happily-ever-after for them, it didn’t mean that it hadn’t devastated her when she’d broken up with him. Does he really think it doesn’t hurt her to watch him be happy with someone else? That it doesn’t eat her alive to know that some other girl gets to live her dream?

But that’s a truth there’s no point in sharing. Instead she draws herself up, breathes deeply and says, “This was a bad idea. Maybe you were right. Maybe we shouldn’t see each other. Maybe we can’t be friends.”

“So, what? That’s it. You’re just going to chuck me again? Like I don’t matter?”

“Of course you matter. Oh Finn, you’re all that matters.”

“Don’t keep saying stuff like that Rae when you don’t mean it.”

“I do mean it,” she protests, feeling the need to defend herself “but it was never going to work for us Finn. I should have thought it through properly”.

“How do you know it wouldn’t?” he sneers “You didn’t hang around long enough to find out.”

“Everyone knows I’m not good enough for you.”

“That’s total bollocks and I’m not having it. And anyway, that’s not your decision to make, Rae. I told you; I decide. I choose. Not you. Not anyone else.”

“Believe me Finn, its better this way.”

“For you, maybe.“ He looks up at her then, and he’s crying and what’s left of her heart breaks. “I miss you so much. All the time.”

She has to fix this. There has to be a way to fix this, if only for his sake. Maybe if she holds him tight enough she can leech out all the toxic bullshit that being with her has infused him with, and he’ll go back to that cool and aloof boy she first met and he will be alright.

This time when she reaches for him, he allows himself to be gathered up; gives in to the weight of her arm around his shoulders. He tucks his hot tearstained face into the crease of her neck. She coos softly to him, rocking him while he pulls sharp, shallow breaths into his aching lungs. When she feels his lips moving against her skin, she thinks he must be speaking but she can’t hear him over the roar of blood in her ears. She leans forward to catch his words, realising too late as his arms snake up her back and around her waist, as his hand rakes through her hair to grasp the back of her neck - he’s kissing her.

Her body screams at her to let this happen. God, she’s missed him. She wants nothing more to give into him and kiss him back, to forget all the reasons why she can’t have this and lose herself inside his kiss. He works his way greedily up her neck, along her jawline, to her mouth; and she lets him linger there a moment, probably too long, but now she has this back, she can’t let it go just yet. Just a second longer… her fingers crawl instinctively to the nape of his neck and nestle in his hair. He holds her tighter, kisses her harder, says her name over and over. There’s a flash, sharp and clear, of what drove her outside in the first place. Finn and his new girl, in this exact same embrace not half an hour before. She could kick herself for forgetting that nothing ever comes from wanting.

Someone needs to save them from themselves and it looks like it will have to be her. She pushes hard against his chest, hard enough that she’s almost certain she’ll leave a bruise, and they finally separate with a loud wet pop.

His tongue swipes hungrily across his mouth, gathering up the remnants of their kiss.

“Why can’t I kiss you, Rae?” he moans plaintively, wild-eyed and breathless and confused. “I used to be allowed to kiss you whenever I wanted. And I always wanted to. I still do.”

He cups her cheek in the palm of his hand but she cannot bring herself to look at him. Her eyes dart furtively over his shoulder to the back of the house, making sure they have not been seen. She feels so foolish. She can barely hear what he says next over the pounding of her heart. “I don’t know what to do with myself when I’m near you now, but I can’t not be near you. It makes me crazy to be in the same room as you and not be able to touch you.”

“Stop it. Please. This is…” too much. What must he be thinking? The difference between them; all the extra space she takes up while the tiny Olivia fits perfectly in his lap. It’s embarrassing. She can’t bear to be near him right now; huge and ungainly and too much, she twists herself out of his grasp.

“Stupid, right?” he huffs, “I know you don’t want me but I can’t help it. I fucking love you, Rae. I’m filled up with it. I can’t stop. I’ve tried, but loving you takes up so much of me there’s nothing left for anything else.”

She is blindsided by his confession. She wants to call him a liar. Wants to dismiss it as thoughtless drunken rambling but more than anything, she wants to take a breath and experience the joy those words should fill her with. But if it’s true, how can she be so selfish when this is what loving her costs him? How can even he deny now that she is toxic?

She won’t let herself cry. She doesn’t have the right to show him how much all this is hurting her. Her pain can’t help him and needing to help him is how they ended up here.

“Finn…” it hangs in air for a moment between them. She somehow finds the strength to stand. He exhales wetly, pushing the heels of his hands hard against his damp eyes and rubs them dry.

“I’m sorry Rae. I’m drunk.” He looks up at her sheepishly, “I promise I won’t… I know you just want to be friends and I want…” Out of habit, he reaches forward, index finger poised to write his heart across the back of her hand. It’s the smallest of touches before he checks himself and quickly places his hands on his knees although he can’t hide his pleasure at the fact that she doesn’t pull away. “I want you to be in my life so… I promise I won’t do that again. I’ll remember that I’m not allowed to. Just say that you won’t… that we can be friends?”

“Is that what you want?” she asks earnestly.

Their eyes lock. His teeth catch at his bottom lip as he shrugs his shoulders noncommittally. They can’t have what they want, but this will do.

She stays with him until his breathing returns to normal and the colour in his face calms. He sighs deeply and they peer through the door watching their friends; she thinks it looks like a science experiment under glass, a giant human ant farm. His hands are shaking so she opens the tobacco tin she’s been holding all this time and lights another cigarette. They share a companionable silence as they pass it back and forth between them. In no time at all it’s finished and Finn grinds the butt under his boot. He steels himself before standing. She comes forward and gently pats his forearm soothingly. “Alright?”

“Not really, but I’ll get there.“

She smiles and on impulse leans in quickly to kiss the side of his mouth. His face is still warm and damp like the smile he offers her. “I’ll see you later, yeah?”

“Count on it.” She watches him climb the steps and enter the house before she turns and heads into the dark.


End file.
